Free The Kraken King by Meljean Brook Page B

through his town.
    Quietly parade it. He paused as he caught sight of Yesui Besud. A former soldier with strong fingers and an archer’s eye, she came out of the women’s side of the bathhouse, her young son in tow. Yesui’s husband had captained one of the first airships destroyed. She might like a head on a pike. But Ariq couldn’t forget the boy. Destroying an enemy should never be more important than the people he fought for—and by the time he’d been her son’s age, Ariq had seen more heads than any boy should ever have to. He wouldn’t display one for her son to see.
    “Good evening, Ariq Noyan.” Yesui still used his title, though he hadn’t commanded a unit of soldiers since they’d left the rebellion. She glanced at his embroidered tunic with a faint smile. “On your way to the soup house?”
    Where he would have eaten anyway. But everyone knew that Lady Inkslinger would be there tonight, too. “I am.”
    “I’ll walk with you.” Yesui fell into step beside Ariq. At a word from her, the boy ran ahead. “I spent ten minutes scrubbing the ink from his feet and hands.”
    Ariq hadn’t spent so much time. Ink still stained his hand and arm. But he had two bottles to give Zenobia, and four barrels that would sell for a substantial sum in the Hindustani markets.
    “So he learned to avoid the black sand,” Ariq said. “What did you learn?”
    “Almost nothing,” she said. “She calls herself Mara Cooper. Her family fled Champa two generations ago.”
    A region on the mainland’s southeastern peninsula. Her accent would be nothing like Ariq’s. “And her husband?”
    “Is from England.”
    The small labor colony at the far western border of the Golden Empire. Over a decade before, the native population had risen up against the empire’s occupation—an event made significant only because the Great Khagan had withdrawn his forces from the colony rather than crush the revolution. That withdrawal had been among the first visible cracks in the Khagan’s power—cracks created by the pressure of the rebellion closer to home, and from the efforts of soldiers like Yesui.
    “Mara claims they are both servants, but she’s no more a lady’s maid than I am,” Yesui continued. “She asked questions.”
    So had Zenobia. “About?”
    “You.”
    Yesui wouldn’t have answered them. No one in this town would say anything of their neighbors to strangers. She would have affected a shy smile and insisted that she didn’t like to gossip.
    Neighbor to neighbor, they chatted like wagtails. By the end of the night, everyone would know that Ariq had worn his best tunic.
    “She is always making notes.”
    They weren’t speaking of the maid now. “Yes,” Ariq said.
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know yet.”
    She glanced at his tunic again. “Is she fierce?”
    He thought of Zenobia’s leap from the falling flyer, of her fight to reach the ocean’s surface after her pack dragged her down. He thought of her eyes, like a flame dancing through jade, and the intelligence behind them. “She is.”
    “Mara Cooper said they hoped to leave for the Red City soon.”
    “I know.” So little time. He couldn’t waste a second of it.
    “I wish you luck, then.” Yesui’s steps slowed as they approached her home. Ahead, the boy ran through the wooden gate and up the path, red dust kicking up under his sandals. When she spoke again, her voice carried the dull ring of armor strapped too tightly around the flesh it protected. “It’s said that you and your brother have slain the marauders.”
    Ariq couldn’t give her what she needed—the assurance that the men who’d fired on her husband’s airship were dead. “Only some of them.”
    “I dream of shooting my arrows through each one of those filthy curs. For those that were killed, you have my gratitude. And my son’s, when he is old enough to know it.” She bent her head. “Please convey my gratitude to your brother, as well.”
    “You should give it to him